Friday, 1 May 2015

On 1st May 2015 Saudi led coalition air strikes targeted Al Shaab, a residential area in Sawan, east of Sanaa, Yemen. Seven houses were totally destroyed burying families in their beds. 17 people were killed, including 7 women, 6 children, and injuring 17 more. There are no military installations in or near to this neighbourhood.

Names, sex and age of the dead

#

Names

Gender

Age

1.

Abdullah Ahmad Abdul Karim AlKibsi

Male

55

2.

Rajaa Abdullah Ahmad Al Kibsi

Child

13

3.

Najwa Abdullah Ahmad AlKibsi

Female

23

4.

Yousra Abdullah Ahmad AlKibsi

Child

14

5.

Saiydah Abdul Qader Mohammed AlKibsi

Female

85

6.

Remas Fuad Ahmed AlHarazi

Child

4

7.

Juma Mohammed Khaddev

Female

60

8.

Amani Abdul Hakim Abdul Karim AlWosabi

Female

17

9.

Hanan Mohammed Saleh Sharih

Female

16

10.

Aminah Hussein AlHarazi

Female

18

11.

Ashwaq Mohammed Saleh Sharih

Female

22

12.

Nawal Mohammed Saleh Sharih

Female

20

13.

Ali Ali AlHaimi

Male

20

14.

Hussein Ali Hadish

Male

30

15.

Mohamed Fouad Ahmed Alassavani

Child

7

16.

Ali Mahdi AlRimi

Male

35

17.

Habiba Al-Haimi

Female

17

WARNING, the following videos are GRAPHIC and DISTRESSING. They are put here as evidence to support the call for an independent enquiry
into war crimes and to call on the West to stop supplying arms to Saudi
Arabia.

The Legal Center for Rights and Development, based in Sanaa, logged a daily report stating that 9 houses were destroyed plus an additional 44 damaged in the are of Al Shaab, with 22 killed (including 9 women and 6 children) and 28 injured in total in Sana'a capital. They reported an 6 additional civilian deaths and 11 injured in Taiz province, plus 6 civilian deaths in Hajja province, the destruction of Al-Hawari bridge in Amran province, the destruction of Al-Tadhamon Bank and Liali Dubai Hotel in Hajja province and the destruction of Medani Hospital in Donet Khatir in Taiz province.

The following is a more detailed report by the Legal Center for Rights and Development of this incident in the Al Shaab area:

The following is an except from an Amnesty International covering the incident:

Yemen: Mounting evidence of high civilian toll of Saudi-led airstrikes

New eyewitness testimony gathered by Amnesty International in the aftermath of recent airstrikes in Sana’a points to a repeated failure by the Saudi Arabian-led military coalition to take adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths in Yemen.

In the early hours of 1 May an airstrike hit a residential area in the Bab al-Sha’b neighbourhood of Sa’wan, in the east of the capital, killing 17 civilians and injuring 17 others. Amnesty International carried out interviews with local residents and eyewitnesses the following day and heard the horrific experiences of a number of survivors of the airstrike.

“These harrowing testimonies are a damning indictment of the failure of the Saudi Arabian military and its allies to take adequate steps to ensure civilians are not needlessly slaughtered in their campaign of airstrikes,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“Under international humanitarian law, all parties to the armed conflict have a duty to take certain precautions in planning and carrying out attacks in order to minimize civilian suffering.

“The Saudi-led coalition must publicly disclose detailed information on all airstrikes carried out in Sana’a on 1 May, including targets and measures taken to avoid incidental harm to civilians. Even if it was believed that fighters were present in the vicinity, before attacking they still had an obligation to determine whether civilians were present and take measures necessary to avoid or at least minimize civilian casualties.”

According to eyewitnesses and local residents, the airstrike occurred between 1AM and 1.30AM on 1 May in Bab al-Sha’b, a neighbourhood encompassing a cluster of about 30 houses. Nine houses were destroyed in the airstrike and the 17 dead included seven women and six children. There were also 17 civilians injured, including six women and one four-year old boy.

Mansour Mohamed Saleh Shareeh, 22, told Amnesty International how he lost six members of his family in the airstrike and how five, including himself, were injured: “At around 1AM I woke up to the house shaking due to an airstrike in the distance and then, one or two minutes later, I found myself buried in the debris of my house. I was screaming due to the pain that I felt all over my body and I could hear my father screaming for help under the rubble. The rest were buried in their sleep.”

“There were no prior warnings before the airstrike. Twelve of us live in this house as family members had arrived seeking shelter from other targeted neighbourhoods. I lost six from my family in the airstrike: My sisters Ashwak, 20, Nawal, 18, Dalal, 16, Hanan, 15, my nephew Hamad 5, and my niece Reemas, 4, were all killed. Meanwhile, my father and my mother, both 70, were injured along with another relative, my sister and me. My mother is currently in the intensive care unit in al-Thawra Hospital. I am still in shock and I cannot digest what happened.”

Abdullah Rajih, a local resident, told Amnesty International that he had woken up as the electricity had come back on momentarily at approximately 1AM: “I decided to take the opportunity with the electricity returning to pump some water. That’s when I heard the first explosion a couple of kilometres away. Two minutes later, a rocket lands in the house a few doors away from mine, causing my whole house to shake and windows to break and shrapnel flew everywhere. The whole neighbourhood helped in the rescue efforts, we buried everybody in a funeral on Sunday.”

“Amina Mohamed al-Wisla, 28, is a mother of six children and her husband is very ill. She died in the airstrike. The children are now living in a school nearby with their uncle.”

Khadija Ahmed Abdelqader al-Kubsi lost three of her daughters Rajaa, Yusra and Najwa, 13, 15 and 20-years-old, her husband and her mother-in-law in the airstrike. She told Amnesty International: “Our house got destroyed, my family was killed, only my disabled 19-year-old son survived.”

According to the residents and local council representative of the neighbourhood, Hafizallah Ali, there was no fighting or exchange of fire prior to the airstrike, no fighters or military objectives in the neighbourhood, and the closest air force military base is approximately two kilometres away in al-Khurafi. However, according to the al-Kubsi family, whose house was hit by the airstrike that affected the neighbourhood, Saudi news outlets mentioned that the father of the family Abdullah al-Kubsi, who was killed in the airstrike, was targeted for being a Huthi leader. But they vehemently denied these aforementioned allegations.

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